A new campaign? adoption photos with Teresa Berg

My wonderful assistant, Jessiree and I just finished photographing adoptable dogs at the Rockwall Adoption Center in Rockwall, Texas. They have a great staff and a wonderful facility — and thanks to the generosity of Dallas businessman, Jack Knox, they have photography equipment on site. So all we had to do is grab our cameras and some props and show up for a day of photography. The shot you see posted here was done at the shelter. We used (obviously) the yellow background paper and the Westcott TD6 continuous light system with a 24×36″ softbox and a 42X72″ reflector. Our pull back (set up shot) is included here so you can see the placement and the equipment. They have a conference room and keep the equipment set up in the corner just as you see it. This way it is also available for “intake” photos if they have someone there who can use their camera. We used an ISO of 640, a shutter speed of 400 and an fstop of 2.2 for most of the images we shot. We’ll post more examples soon. Publish your questions as comments and we’ll do our best to answer them promptly! Yes, this does involve sitting on the floor quite a bit, as most of the dogs were medium to large sized. You can do this!

If you are close to the Rockwall, Texas area and you would like to volunteer as one of their photographers and use this equipment for your adoption photos, the nice people there will gladly sign you up as a volunteer! They have a helpful group of people and really need some help with their photography. Visit their website and give them a call.

7 comments

The stand comes with it. Look through some of the earlier posts on this blog and you will see pictures or links to this reflector (which I have written about many times). They took it off it’s stand and I think removed the tilter bracket so I just stood it up on the floor.

I am going every Thursday to my local Humane Society and photographing cats. I am using the continuous light TD6, halo softbox, and reflector. I am shooting at ISO 640, f2.8, shutter speed around 400. I have my camera on a tripod. I am having trouble getting images in focus. So many of them are blurry. Would a studio strobe help with this? I really do love the continuous light but i am taking so many shots and only a few are in focus. Any things that i could do to get more in focus? I am using the autofocus on my camera and trying to get the sensor on the cat’s eye. Which is a challenge! They do not sit still!!!!

I don’t know what camera you are using but if you can, select a GROUP of focus points instead of just using the center one. In the camera I use, I can choose different sets of points so that’s one thing to try. That should help. I’m wondering how you manage to use the tripod. I never can seem to get the shot that I want without taking the camera off the tripod. But good for you if you can!